How one iceberg changed everything for Antarctic penguin colony When it comes to nature, it often reminds us that even the smallest change in the environment can ripple through an entire ecosystem. According to experts, in Antarctica, life depends on a fine balance of sea ice, open water and seasonal rhythms. A lone iceberg has…
The Massachusetts project is an example of agrivoltaics, a nascent farming practice that combines agriculture with solar energy generation on the same land. Farmers have relied on sunshine to grow healthy crops for generations. But as they say, excess of anything is bad and with climate change causing hotter summers, longer droughts and erratic weather,…
Ghana is transforming its plastic problems into paving blocks for its roads, sold below the price of concrete blocks. Behind this operation is Nelson Boateng, who graduated in computer network engineering, and was already manufacturing plastic bags and began transforming the same material into flooring. The plastic Ghana cannot contain Accra, the capital of Ghana…
More than 120 fish species have migrated from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean Since the Suez Canal opened more than 150 years ago, more than 120 fish species have migrated from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have now created a statistical model that predicts which species are likely…
Concrete is the most widely used manufactured material on Earth, yet most people only ever encounter it once it has already hardened into a wall, a road or a slab. Science communicator Derek Muller set out to understand what the material actually does while it is still wet, by climbing into a tank of fresh…
Image(s): Florida Key Isaland/Canva Imagine erasing almost every insect and small animal from an island, then watching nature rebuild itself from scratch. That was exactly what a team of ecologists did in the Florida Keys during one of the most influential ecological experiments ever conducted. In 1966, researchers enclosed tiny mangrove islands in enormous plastic…
The spotted lanternfly has become one of the most destructive invasive insects in the United States, threatening vineyards, orchards and forests by feeding on the sap of hundreds of plant species. Finding its egg masses before they hatch is one of the most effective ways to slow its spread, but the eggs are well camouflaged…
For generations, indigenous communities in Arunachal Pradesh had been using a spice in their food for its citrusy, tongue-tingling flavour. The native plant was a part of their world and that’s all they knew. But today, the small spice is helping 200 families gain a livelihood while also protecting agricultural land.On autumn mornings, residents of…
The Pacific Ring of Fire, the horseshoe-shaped belt of volcanoes circling the Pacific Ocean, may have played a far bigger role in shaping Earth’s past climate than previously understood. Findings show that some of the largest volcanic eruptions of the past 12,000 years, many originating from this seismically active region, align closely with major glacial…
The fossil record has a habit of reshaping ideas that once seemed settled. In the Late Cretaceous, long before the extinction of the dinosaurs, small mammals occupied a world dominated by much larger reptiles. Most left behind little more than isolated teeth and fragments of bone, making it difficult to understand how they were related…
Richard Feynman’s most enduring quote was never intended as a memorable slogan. It came from his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology, where the Nobel Prize-winning physicist spoke about the principles that should guide scientific research. Among his remarks, one sentence has outlived the rest: “The first principle is that you must…
The deep ocean has a way of turning ordinary events into unanswered questions. Far below the waves, sounds travel through water in ways that can make distant sources appear much closer or far stranger than they really are. In 1997, a powerful low-frequency noise recorded across the Pacific Ocean created one of the most unusual…
